What Are Google Discovery Ads: How to Inspire Consumers with Google Discovery Ads in 2021 While They Window Shop?

Google is constantly innovating, which makes it sometimes hard to keep track of all the advertising formats available. Google Discovery ads have already been around for more than a year, but that doesn’t mean that everyone understands how to use them.

When you use them to your advantage, you can use these Discovery ads to gain the interest of browsers as they window shop. At the very least, you will get an increase in your company’s visibility. You will also likely get an increase in web traffic and boost your sales by using these ads.

Take a closer look at what are Google Discovery ads and how you can use them to your advantage.

What Are Google Discovery Ads?

Google Discovery ads appear in Google feeds across devices. When on mobile devices, viewers see them in their Discovery feed. They appear in the mobile feed on YouTube and Gmail, specifically in the tab for promotions and social.

According to Google, appearing in these feeds can give you access to as many as billions of  customers who use various Google programs.

In addition to where they appear, Discovery ads are unique in that they are personalized and highly visual. You pay with a cost-per-action bid and get to set your budget.

What You Can and Can’t Adjust

An important part of understanding Google Discovery ads is the aspects that you have control of and those that you do not.

Google does not let you adjust certain settings. Instead, these are automated to maximize your performance based on your goals, budget, and bid and to save you time. Keep in mind that you can’t adjust:

• Ad rotation
• Contextual targeting
• Delivery method
• Device targeting
• Frequency capping
• Manual bid strategies
• Placement targeting and extensions

How Does Google Decide Which Discovery Ads to Show?

Google shows Discovery ads based on what its algorithms expect the viewer to be interested in. To figure out those interests, Google looks at content followed on Discovery, videos watched on YouTube, and other factors.

Parts of Your Discovery Ad

You can create Discovery ads with either a single image or a multi-image carousel. As you create your ad, Google will ask you to include the following:

• Headline (Up to 40 characters, up to 5 per creative)
• Description (Up to 90 characters, up to 5 per creative)
• Images for Single-image Ads (Google suggests landscape 1.91:1 but accepts portrait 4:5, square 1:1, logos 1:1; up to 20 per creative)
• Card Images for Multi-Image Carousel (2 to 10 total; only 1.91:1 or square and all with same aspect ratio)
• Business Name (Up to 25 characters)
• Logos (Ideally 1:1, 1200×1200)
• Final URL (Default landing page)
• CTA Text (Optional, with an “Automatic” option)

Why Do You Provide Multiple Headlines, Descriptions, and Images?

If you are creating a single Discovery advertisement, you may wonder why you are supposed to provide multiple headlines and descriptions. The same is true for images in the case of single-image ads.

You provide these multiples so that Google’s algorithms have more options of what to display to your audience. Google uses machine learning to choose from your various images, headlines, and descriptions in each situation. The idea is that you can get the best combination of your ad for a given audience all the time.

Who Can Benefit From Discovery Ads?

Any website or company can benefit from using Discovery ads. They are particularly helpful if you want to drive conversions at scale, reach new customers via media, or reconnect with valuable customers.

Discovery ads can help drive conversions to your marketing objective at scale, thanks to their prevalence and vibrancy. You can use them to boost website visits, newsletter signups, sales, or meet another goal.

The visually rich nature of the ads helps draw the attention of new customers. This is furthered by the large reach of Discovery ads. The result is the ability to drive interest from new customers. This is furthered by the fact that Google’s algorithms time the ads to appear at the point when viewers are most likely to be interested in trying something new.

In terms of reconnecting with valuable customers, you will find yourself with more and more chances to drive actions as people keep seeing your content on their Google feeds. To make this even better, Google’s algorithms can tell which people have the highest chance of engaging with your brand again.

How to Create Discovery Ads

Setting up a Discovery campaign is incredibly straightforward and gives you plenty of options as to what to include. You will start by setting up a campaign, and then you can move to set up ads within it.

The following steps will guide you through the process:

1. When logged into Google Ads, go to the left page menu and select “Campaigns”.
2. Click the “+” button in blue and choose “New campaign”.
3. Choose your preferred marketing objective (from Sales, Website traffic, Leads, or No goal).
4. Select the campaign type as “Discovery” and click “Continue”.
5. Input your language and geographic targeting.
6. Choose your audiences. Targeting options include in-market, remarketing, and custom intent audiences.
7. Choose a bid strategy from tCPA or maximize conversions and an average daily budget.
8. Save the campaign.
9. Go to the Discovery campaign.
10. Look at the left menu and click on “Ads & Extensions”.
11. Select the “+” button in blue and choose either “Discovery ad” or “Discovery Carousel ad”.
12. Enter the relevant information (headline, description, image or card image, business name, logo, final URL, mobile URL, CTA text).
13. Save the ad.

Remember that you will need to give your campaign and ads some time to ramp up.

Why Use Google Discovery Ads?

Google offers many of the same features for its Discovery ads as it does for other types of ads. These include the ability to set up the headlines, logos, and more. You also get some unique features that help Discovery ads stand out from other types of Google ads.

Create More Relevant Ads

Using Discovery ads also lets you improve the relevance and meaningfulness of your advertisements to your viewers. Google’s algorithms ensure that your ads will appear at the appropriate time when people are in a place to learn about your offerings. Those algorithms also let Google target the people who are most likely to be interested in the content of your ads.

Create Visually Rich Ads

Not only are Discovery ads more relevant, but they also offer the chance to be more visually rich, regardless of where they appear. This is because Google uses machine learning and various ad formats to let your ads be displayed seamlessly on all devices. The result is that all viewers get the experience that you intended.

Enhanced Reach With Just One Campaign

If you were to use other Google advertising methods, you would need to create multiple campaigns to have the same reach that you get with Discovery ads. Remember that Discovery ads can reach as many as three billion people. This is thanks to the fact that they appear on the Discovery feed, Gmail tabs for Social and Promotions, Watch Next YouTube feed, and YouTube Home.

This essentially means that Discovery ads let you maximize your reach with minimal effort on your part.

You Can Opt for Automated Bidding

Like the other ad types, Google Discovery ads allow automated bidding. You can use strategies like Target CPA or Maximize Conversions to meet your goals with minimal effort on your part. Automated bidding reduces the time you spend on managing bids, allowing you to spend more time on other important tasks.

Now that you understand what Google Discovery ads are, you can take a look at the various strategies and tips to let you make the most of them and attract window shoppers and browsers.

Know How to Choose a Budget

If you aren’t sure how much budget to allocate to your Google Discovery ads, Google has some suggestions. They suggest a budget that is 10 times or more as much as your target CPA (cost-per-action) bid.

Don’t Expect Instant Results

As with any other type of advertisement you create, you cannot expect to see results instantly. As such, you want to wait to make changes. Google suggests waiting until you have at least 40 conversions before you make any changes. If you want to make more changes, you should wait at least two or three more weeks.

This strategy will give you enough time to start to see results. It also helps you gather enough data to allow your Discovery campaign to perform better. You should expect your campaign to start experiencing an improvement in performance once you have a bit more data.

Create Creatives That Are High-quality and Visually Rich

As you develop the creatives for your Discovery ads, Google suggests you use images that are high-quality, preferably either 1200×1200 pixels or 1200×628 pixels. This will improve the level of engagement that viewers have with your ads. This comes from the fact that high-quality images are more likely to pull in viewers and inspire them to take action.

Use Image from sources

You can choose to upload your own images, search for STOCK IMAGES. You can even paste URL and Google will automatically scan images from your website..

Set up Landscape and Square Images

As you choose your images, do your best to include both square and landscape images. This ensures there are enough options for the Discovery campaign to automatically choose an image size that works best.

Ideally, you want to include a minimum of five of each landscape and square images for single-image ads. For carousels, include a minimum of five images for the best results. Remember that Google will display your Discovery carousel ad images in the order you upload them.

Pay Close Attention to Image Requirements

Google has slightly different requirements for images in Discovery ads than it does for other types of advertisements. If you accidentally submit a Discovery campaign with images that don’t fit the guidelines, it will not display, thus wasting your time.

To make sure your images fit the requirements, keep the following in mind.

General Image Requirements

You will need to include a logo in your Discovery ad. You should upload a 1:1 square logo, which Google will make into a circle at times. You will be able to preview this circle as you set it up. Ideally, you should opt for a centered logo and a transparent background. Google suggests your logo is 1200×1200 pixels, but the minimum size is 128×128 pixels.

Requirements for Single-image Ads

As mentioned, Google suggests using landscape images that are 1.91:1 for single-image ads, and you can upload as many as 20 images. Your complete list of image options includes:

• Landscape images of 1.91:1 – Google recommends 1200×628, but they can be as small as 600×314.
• Square images of 1:1 – Google recommends 1200×1200, but they can be as small as 300×300.
• Portraits with 4:5 aspect ratios – Google recommends 960×1200, but they can be as small as 480×600.

Do not just use portrait images, as those don’t appear on YouTube. Therefore, if you only have portrait images, your ad cannot appear on YouTube.

You should also remember that the file size cannot be larger than 5 MB. Google supports images that are static GIFs, PNGs, or JPGs.

Requirements for Multi-image Carousel Ads

For this type of ad, you can only use landscape or square images. Importantly, Google will only let you save the ad if all of your cards contain images with the same aspect ratio. As such, they must be all landscape or all square. You can also submit both a landscape and a square image for each position. In that case, each Discovery ad instance will only use all landscape or all square images.

Images That You Cannot Include

Google has some restrictions on the type of images and creatives you can include in your Discovery ads. Your images cannot reference or depict the following:

• Regulated substances, including alcohol, tobacco, and recreational drugs
• Criminality or weapons
• Gambling
• Contests, lotteries, and cash sweepstakes
• Bodily fluids
• Sexually suggestive content
• Body parts that are unnecessarily exposed
• Invasive medical procedures
• Negative life events like financial problems, personal injuries, and divorce
• Death, including animals
• Recovery
• Man-made or natural crises
• Pain or trauma, including crying or grieving

There are some exceptions to the above limits. For example, you can include weapons and criminality in reference to a fictional work or in a non-criminal or violent context, such as Halloween costumes or utility knives.

There are also exceptions for negative events as long as they are fictional. There are further exceptions for insurance, divorce services, funeral homes, and a few other companies, as long as they don’t include a few specific pieces of content.

Create a Story With Multi-image Carousel Ads

Opting for multi-image carousel Discovery ads gives you the opportunity to easily create a story. Simply take advantage of the fact that you can load multiple images, and they always appear in order. Consider showing off the customer journey or someone putting your product to good use after opening it. Or, get creative.

Create Headlines and Descriptions Carefully

As you craft your descriptions and headlines for your Discovery ad, do your best to highlight promotions or other relevant information about your offerings. Discounts and promotions will bring in interest.

Use Sentence Case

When writing the descriptions and headlines, Google suggests sticking to sentence casing. This creates a more authentic and organic experience.

Check the Language

Take a second to confirm that your Discovery campaign is set to the right language. This is particularly important if your creative is in a language that you do not commonly use.

Choose the Right Target Viewers

When creating the Discovery ads, both in developing the creatives and setting the campaign up, choose your audience carefully. You will likely see the best results if you choose audiences that have a higher chance of converting based on their performance on Video, Display, and Search ads. Examples are users who are similar to the current customer base, those who have been on your website, and existing customers.

It is observed that adding similar audiences, remarketing, customer match, and custom intent to your Discovery ads can reduce your CPA by 25% and increase your conversion rate by 81%.

Use Audience Expansion or Automatic Targeting

Take this targeting to the next level with audience expansion, a tool that helps you find viewers who share characteristics with your current audience.

By default, this tool will conservatively expand your reach without wasting your budget. You can adjust the settings to maximize the reach if you prefer.

Start With the Bid Strategy of Maximize Conversions

As mentioned, you can set up your Discovery campaigns to have your bid strategy as either target cost-per-acquisition or maximize conversions. You have the option of starting with either, but it is typically best to start with Maximize Conversions.

This is because the target CPA bid strategy does best when it has relevant data. Using the maximize conversions strategy for at least a few weeks gives Google enough time to gather that baseline data.

If you want, you should be able to successfully switch to the target CPA bid strategy after one or two weeks.

Create Discovery Ads for All Funnel Stages

Ideally, you will want to develop Google Discovery ads for each stage of your sales and conversion funnel. With some simple adaptation, you can easily accommodate various stages with this type of ad.

Start With Remarketing

While your goal should be to eventually use Discovery ads for multiple stages, start with remarketing if you aren’t sure where to begin. This is the ideal strategy since remarketing typically gives you the best results as the audience is already familiar with you.

Once you feel confident with remarketing using Discovery ads, expand your audience with the custom intent and in-market audiences offered by Google. To choose which audiences to expand into first, look at your Google Analytics or check which audiences perform the best in your Search campaigns.

Don’t Forget to Track Your Discovery Campaign

As with any other type of advertisement or digital marketing you use, you should make it a point to measure the performance of your Discovery ads. After all, you will not know if it is successful as-is or requires changes if you don’t look at data.

There are plenty of ways to track your campaign and ensure you have up-to-date information. One of the ways is to look at asset-level reports. These reports will let you know which assets are doing the best, providing you hints as to what you can do to improve other marketing campaigns.

You should also look at audience-level reports. This will help you find out which customers bring in the most sales or conversions. Based on that information, you can adjust the creative content of your ad to further appeal to them or adjust your bids.

Make sure you have enabled site wide tagging. This will let you measure your conversions, including the actions that visitors take on your website after clicking on your ad.

Wrap Up

Now that you have a clear idea of what are Google Discovery ads and some of the best practices with them, you are ready to use these Discovery campaigns to your advantage to attract your audience. You don’t have to incorporate all of the tips right away. Start with just a few of the most basic ones, and then incorporate more as you grow your campaign. Just like all of the other Google advertising types, Discovery ads will have a small learning curve, but there are plenty of resources, like this one, to guide you and lead you to success.